Carbon dioxide CO2 (often called carbonic acid gas) is a chemical compound composed of carbon and oxygen. Carbonic acid gas is a color- and odorless gas. It is a natural component of the air, with a low concentration, and is produced by in animals during the cell respiration, but also during the combustion of carbon-containing substances under sufficient presence of oxygen. Since the advent of the industrialization, the CO2 proportion in the atmosphere has risen markedly. A main cause for this are the CO2 emissions caused by human beings—the so-called antroprogenic CO2 emissions. The carbonic acid gas in the atmosphere absorbs a portion of the heat radiation. This property renders carbonic acid gas to be a one of the so-called Green House Gases (GHG) and is one of the co-originators of the global greenhouse effect. For these and also for other reasons, research and development is performed at present in the most different directions to find a way to reduce the antroprogenic CO2 emissions. In particular, in relation with the generation of energy which is often carried out by the combustion of fossil energy carriers such as coal, oil or gas, but also by other combustion processes, for example waste incineration, there is a great demand for CO2 reduction. Per year, more than twenty billion tons of CO2 are released into the atmosphere by such processes.
Among others, the principle of climate neutrality is aimed at by pursuing approaches in which efforts are made to compensate the generation of energy accompanied by CO2 emissions by using alternative energies. This approach is represented in FIG. 1 in a very schematic manner. Emitters of greenhouse gases (GHG), such as industrial enterprises (e.g. manufacturers of automobiles) 1 or power plant operators 2, invest in or operate, e.g. wind farms 3 at other locations in the framework of compensation projects to generate energy there without GHG emissions. Purely on the basis of calculations, it is thus possible to achieve climate compensation. Numerous companies try to buy a “climatically neutral” profile in this way.
Wind and solar power plants which convert the renewable energies into electric energy have an unsteady delivery of power, which hampers the operation of a facility according to the requirements of an electrically mixed network and gives rise to facility and operation costs for additional reserve and frequency regulation facilities. Accordingly, the costs of power generation from wind or solar power plants are thereby raised significantly compared to conventional power.
It is seen as a problem that at present almost all regenerative electric energy that is produced is supplied to the public AC voltage mixed network, the frequency of which is allowed to vary only within very narrow boundaries (e.g., +/−0.4%). This can only be achieved when the generation of electric current in the network is virtually always equal to the consumption. The necessity that wind and solar power plants must always hold available the sufficient reserve and frequency regulation capacities leads to an increase in the costs of power generation with these facilities. Wind and solar power plants within the electrical mixed network thus result in further “hidden” costs and problems.
Already at the present stage of completion of wind power plants in many countries, the electric power supply network may create serious problems, if, e.g., as a result of wind scarcity or strong winds, wind power fails at a large scale, in particular if this failure occurs suddenly or unexpectedly. In any case however, reserve and frequency regulation capacities are necessary, which are adapted to the installed wind and solar output.
It follows from the above that solar and wind power plants which supply (current) into an electrical mixed network can hardly replace the installed outputs of other power plants in the mixed network. This leads to a situation that solar and wind power may be valuated approximately only with the saved fuel cost of the other heat power plants present in the network.